JUDGMENT :

Heard the parties.

2. Petitioner has approached this Court with a prayer for quashing the disciplinary proceeding as contained in letter dated 06.06.2019 (Annexure-3), issued by respondent No. 4, on the allegation that petitioner has committed financial irregularities and indulged in corruption with regard to implementation of the scheme related to tank renovation and dova. Further prayer has been made for quashing the subsequent order of suspension of the petitioner as contained in memo dated 17.07.2019.

3. As per the factual matrix, petitioner was working under the respondent-Department and from time to time, he was transferred to different places and presently, is posted at Amrapara, Pakur. According to the petitioner, while working at Pakur, respondent No. 2 vide its letter dated 19.09.2018, informed the petitioner that a preliminary enquiry has been conducted against the petitioner on a complaint received from one Manoj Kumar Rai and Sukhdev Thakur and explanation was asked from the petitioner. After receiving the said letter, petitioner sent several request letters to the respondents for furnishing the copies of the schemes for which he has been alleged to have committed irregularities. It is the further case of the petitioner that in absence of explanation from the petitioner, the respondents held the petitioner guilty of the charges levelled against him and decided to initiate departmental proceeding. It is the further case of the petitioner that to his utter surprise, he received letter dated 06.06.2019, which reveals that a departmental proceeding has already been initiated against him in terms of Rule 17 of the Jharkhand Government Servants (Classification, Control & Appeal) Rules, 2016 (for short ‘CCA Rules, 2016’), finding the petitioner to have committed financial irregularities and his indulgence in corruption with regard to implementation of the Scheme related to tank renovation and dova. Subsequently, vide letter dated 17.07.2019, the petitioner was put under suspension in accordance with Rule 9(1)(a) of CCA Rules, 2016. The petitioner had also contacted the appointed Enquiry Officer, who denied to have received any information regarding initiation of the said Departmental Proceeding against the petitioner. Moreover, as per memo No. 5946 dated 24.07.2019, the said Enquiry Officer was not even a Disciplinary Authority of the Agriculture Department. From the aforesaid facts it is clear that the respondents have initiated a Departmental Proceeding against the petitioner without any functional Enquiry Officer to conduct the disciplinary proceeding and yet the petitioner is put under suspension.

Aggrieved by the said action of the respondents, the petitioner has been constrained to knock the door of this Hon’ble Court.

4. Mr. Rajiv Sinha, learned senior counsel appearing for the petitioner, strenuously urges that the impugned order as contained in letter dated 06.06.2019 is non est in the eyes of law and the same is contrary to the Rules as envisaged in the CCA Rules, 2016. Further, the initiation of departmental proceeding (Annexure-3) followed by suspension order (Annexure-5) are without service of any memo of charges to the petitioner and as such, the same are illegal and amounts to colourable exercise of power by the respondent-authorities. The suspension of the petitioner vide letter dated 17.07.2019 (Annexure-5) is bad in law, as on the date of suspension no disciplinary proceeding was contemplated or was pending against the petitioner in terms of Rule 9(1)(a) of the CCA Rules, 2016. Learned senior counsel further argues that the Enquiry Officer namely, Shrawan Soy as referred in the impugned order dated 06.06.2019 (Annexure-3), has been newly empanelled as departmental enquiry officer by the Department of Personnel, Administrative Reforms and Rajbhasha, vide order dated 24.07.2019 (Annexure-6), i.e. after more than a month of issuance of the impugned order dated 06.06.2019 and that too he was not empan